New Work

1 hour dance performance for 3 dancers & luminous e-textile research

The Temple Had Oblique Windows, title of this dance performance, was taken from Victor Hugo’s verse (Cromwell, 1827), which itself was inspired by the description of Solomon's Temple in the Bible's First Book of Kings.
In 4 words, it sums up the dramaturgical stake of this creation : the ability to create meaning by means of form or shape. I understand this architectural form – The Temple Had Oblique Windows – not only as a geometrical pattern but also as a meaningful element of the story being told.
In the same way, my art and tech research on « dance and lighting » leads to the creation of a unique material, ranging between fleshly shadows and colored lights. This material carries on its own language that I tempt to befall from the settings of ordinary and every day life situations.
The performance is set in a domestic interior.
In that sense, this project reveals an inclination toward visual arts, especially classical painting. Photography and the early years of cinema are also great source of inspiration for my work.

Fragile radiance

Technology is often viewed as its own universe distinct from human activity, which endures essentially unchanged since antiquity. Our approach, however, apperceives technologies and human beings equally as matter, operating according to the same universal physical principles that describe a single system of human and tech. Thus, any object integrating software programming, electrically conductive materials, or lighting effects will emit electromagnetic waves and will interact with its environment beyond its design functions.

Through our artistic creative process, we look at and work with this specific space where technical effects are neither strong nor stable enough for the engineer yet can be used by and interact with performers.

Here Dancers’ and choreographers’ expertise highlights the continuity between the technological and human worlds within a single physical system where machines and bodies are interlaced .

Jeanne Bloch, May 2017

Lab

Contemporary Hope Lab

Our research identifies artists’ contribution to arts-sciences and art-tech collaboration, beyond aesthetics. It addresses both the process whereby artists and engineers collaborate and the collaborative outcomes themselves. Specifically, we build upon Jeanne Bloch’s work in dance and in luminous textiles where she looks at not only the interactions among choreographers, dancers, and engineers, but also the possibilities at large created by textile-based, low-emission lights. Our investigations examine:

– The working space: how a fab lab set up next to the dance studio can help inter-disciplinary collaboration.

– Dance and movement as manipulation tools that help user-centric innovation.

– The artist perspective and vision as a practice that inspires sustainable innovation.

– The possibilities of textile-based low-intensity lights for new lighting uses.

Next Contemporary Hope Lab event: Qualitative research set up at Cité des Sciences, Paris, December 9th-16th, 2017

Workshops

Workshops & classes : “Light Augmented by Dance”

We collaborate with theaters, museums and dance schools to provide an artistic experience between dance and new technologies. Participants : professional and student dancers // Duration : from ½ day workshop to 10 days sessions // Contact us: workshops@contemporaryhope.dance // We bring our luminous T shirts for the workshop.

How to light the body space? “I use electronic-textile technics to illuminate dancers’ body space. I thus create a vocabulary that is neither totally movement nor light but that exists only with the combination of both. I then codify this material into a dance “barre” and share it during a “light & movement” dance class.” Jeanne Bloch

Collective

Jeanne Bloch (Paris)Her work values dance and movement beyond the artistic stage redefining the artist’s position within society and its contribution beyond the creation. Jeanne develops an artistic expression in which intuitive dimension thrives alongside technological advancements. Jeanne also approaches dance and body movement as a catalyst for Innovation. Lying at the crossroads of movement and e-textiles (integration of flexible electronic modules into fabric), her research resulted in the creation of unique lighting effects anchored in the choreographic architecture. Jeanne has been invited to work for numerous cultural centers such as Gaité Lyrique, Stereolux (Arts & Technologies Lab), Dance tech Berlin, the 104, the CND (National Dance Center), the Carrefour Numérique de la Cité des Sciences in Paris….. She is involved in a number of interdisciplinary « art and science » research networks and has participated in several international conferences on the subject: in the United States (University of Michigran, Utah….) and in Europe: University of Lyon, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, ARTEM, Nancy, Summer Lab, Imagine 2020 (Portugal), The Year of Light in France (2015). Before dedicating herself to artwork, she worked for about 12 years with international organizations on environmental, ethical and economic issues - child labour ; corporate and local community relations in Africa and Asia ; sustainable consumption patterns… Jeanne lives in Paris. She also worked in South Korea, in the Congo (RDC), in Salvador, San Francisco, New York, Israël and several other European countries. She has studied dance since an early age with prominent teachers: Wayne Bars (ballet), Martha Graham School (New York et Paris), Elsa Volliaston (Afro-contemporary), Martha Rodezno (improv). She always continues to upgrade, update and learn through professional trainings (Rosalind Crisp, Lia Rodriguez, Andrew Morrish, Bill T Jones…)

Anja Röttgerkamp (Bruxelles)

dancer, choreographer (Brussels) Anja Dancer, Choreographer, movement therapist, Anja has been trained at the Pina Baush Dance school. She worked with numerous major dance companies including the French Artist Gisèle Vienne who she collaborated with during more than 10 years. She has been touring worldwide. In addiition, Anja has been studing Fashiatherapy for 3 years.. Jeanne and Anja has been working together during several years. Anja brings to Jeanne’s work a valuable artistic feedback.

Sociologist, (Montreal) Céline Verchère has a doctorate in sociology and graduated in Political Science. She has worked for over ten years as an expert in the "Usage and User Experience (ßUx) group" for the CEA (Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives) at the MINATEC Campus in Grenoble (France). During this time, she reflected upon and developed the application of humanities and social science (sociology, anthropology) methodologies within industry, with the aim of accompanying new design approaches for technological innovations. Céline Verchère has lived in Canada since 2014. She has been welcomed as an associate researcher in the Interdisciplinary Institute for Technological Innovation (3IT) at the University of Sherbrooke and is currently working as a research engineer (research professional) within the LN2 (Nanosystems and Nanotechnologies Laboratory). She is co-leader of the "Ethics, Uses and Society" group (CNRS - University of Sherbrooke). Jeanne and Céline have been talking for a year about various art based innovation approaches in preparation of their collaboration.

Jan Klein (Berlin)

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director of photography (Berlin) Jan graduated from Potsdam Film & Television Academy (HFF Konrad Wolf). IHe also has a BA in Audivisual Media from Beuth -University of Applied Sicences, Berlin a n d h a s c o m p l e t e d a one year study in audio-visual art at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jérusalem. Jan collaborated as director of photography à in a number of artistic projects projets and performances. Jan has worked with Jeanne during her residency at Dance Tech Berlin.

Teresa Almeida (Newcastle)

Teresa Almeida, artiste-designer e-textile & interaction (Newcastle) Teresa Almeida is an artist, designer, researcher, and educator. Her work explores the relationship between art, technology and wearable media. Some of her projects include inflatables, sound reactive garments, and social coping patches. She has shown internationally and is published in the books Fashionable Technology (2008), Future Fashion (2010), and Make: Wearable Electronics (2014). Main interests are wearable and soft technology, craft, tangible and embodied interfaces, designing for women’s health and wellbeing, empowerment and social justice. Previously, she was Lecturer in Media Arts at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore where she developed and taught Crafting Technology and Wearable and Soft Technologies design studios. She holds a Master’s Degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and she is currently a PhD Candidate with Open Lab, Newcastle University, Newcastle U.K. Jeanne and Teresa met during the Art and Climate Change European Seminar (Imagine 2020), Teresa was part of Jeanne first e-textile-light-dance project.

designer textile & interaction (Paris) Florence Bost, is a design textile Specialist. Her innovative and intuitive approach is part of new practices that expand the possibilities of the use of textile. Graduate of l’Ecole Supérieure de Design Industriel in Paris in 1992, Florence Bost's career started in the Studio of Andrea Branzi (Italy) where she had drawn a collection of printed textiles for Memphis. She showcased her first techno-poetic pieces in 1991 at the VIA for the exhibition « Hybrid Objects ». Laureate of the Villa Kujoyama in 1997, she further her researches on new technologies in the textile arena and created innovative prototypes such as the sound jacquard. In 2003, Florence Bost created her own brand «Sable Chaud » which offers an original approach to textile design to French businesses. She publishes in 2014 a book entitled « Textiles, innovations chez matières actives » from Editions Eyrolles. As a witness to the development of new technologies in the textile industry, the book describes new processes of creation in the fashion, art, architecture, health and sport sectors. Jeanne and Florence recently worked together for an « art & industry ». R&D project.